Loganville-Springfield teachers raise money for childhood cancer

Today, the teachers at Loganville-Springfield Elementary School in the Dallastown School District took a few minutes away from their hectic work lives and overflowing schedules to enjoy a Chili’s lunch in the teacher’s lounge. The food was provided by Retired Principal Scott Carl, a token of appreciation for the $400 the staff raised to help in the fight against childhood cancer.

You know, that’s not entirely true; they didn’t take a few minutes away from their hectic work lives and overflowing schedules–they’re teachers, and spending an hour and a half in their lounge at lunch shows that they don’t have that luxury–but they did get to sit down to some take out while they dealt with it all.

The brainchild of Mr. Carl, members of the staff donate $5 for the opportunity to dress down for the day, and Principal Scott takes them in a bunch of food.

The donations are split between St. Jude and Penn State Hershey Children Hospital’s Four Diamonds. Principal Scott says that the teachers have raised over $1500 in the three years since he came up with the idea.

I am pleased to have been a part of the whole deal, traveling with Scott to the event. It was not only excellent to see him working the crowd in the teachers’ lounge, detailing all of the food offerings–don’t forget Nancy’s pumpkin roll–a man who has never served a bit of food professionally seeming like a seasoned professional.

His magic is even more evident when he stops in a third grade classroom or on a busy playground. That dude may as well be an ice cream truck. As he strolled the playground, a swarm of students thronged and followed him, the wise old sage he must seem to their eight year old minds, even though he’s not yet 50 and doesn’t have a gray hair on his head.

Some of them were so intrigued with him that they came up and started asking me questions. No, I am not Mr. Carl’s brother. Thankfully, the bell rang before I had to get too deep into my bona fides (sic).

Mr. Carl is simply one of the good guys, and good guys know other good guys, like the members of the staff at LSE. It is so good to know there are people like that out there, standing a post, helping others along.

During our conversations today, which centered largely around people helping people, we touched on the Golden Rule at times, not as a Christian thing or a Buddhist thing, but as a human thing. It isn’t a crazy notion that we would all go through our lives prepared for action because we know that someone is going to need as to be ready. It was reassuring to see that Principal Scott and the staff at LSE are going through their lives so prepared, and it’s good to know they’re out there should we need. This is the point when you would say “God bless ’em,” but He already has.

Love you, beautiful people, and it’s good to be sharing the space with you.

Hasta pronto.